Being "All-In": Self-Fulfillment and The Challenge of FOMO
It happened three times in one day, which became the tipping point. And I must admit that I hadn’t been aware of the acronym FOMO until then, but once I learned of it, it seemed to pop up everywhere, just like when you buy a new car and suddenly notice countless others just like it driving around. The first FOMO mention came to me in a business associate’s email message that morning. Mere hours later, my husband, despite his contempt for the acronym, actually referred to it in our business meeting. THEN, an esteemed friend and colleague used it that evening during our DRIVEN energy workshop.
The Fear Of Missing Out appears to be a real phenomenon in our contemporary culture, impactful enough to have earned itself a trendy acronym. To me, it seems like a foreign fear to adopt, but one that’s probably not too hard to cultivate. Since we have so many more media outlets available to us than ever before, there is the illusion that so much more is actually happening….and so much more to miss out on.
When I discovered the FOMO predicament, it immediately made me concerned about our society’s values, and I also felt a rush of gratitude that it doesn’t apply to me. My own father used to proclaim, “I’m just where I want to be”, and he still does. That sentiment must have been absorbed deep into my psyche, because it’s exactly the way I feel today. Let me share with you some insight about how I got here. May my experience ease any FOMO-fications you may harbor.
Don’t Just Think It. Live It!
I will admit that building up to an event or activity is occasionally a challenge. But once I’ve caught a rhythm, I’m “all in”. In other words, I achieve a state of focus, with the goal of making the experience the best it can possibly be. A good example comes from my dear family friend Mrs Alpert, who always said, “If I had a job in a poop factory making poop patties, I’d find the most efficient and effective way to do it, and I’d enjoy it, too.” I couldn’t have said it better (or cleaner)!
Now, being ‘all in’ is only half the challenge. Sometimes we need to double-check that we’re making good choices about what we ARE doing. To stay vigilant on this, I am becoming more deliberate and focused when choosing how to spend my time. One way to calibrate is to take the energy quiz on the DRIVEN website. Go ahead and try it yourself. Take the entire quiz, but zero in on the second question under ‘Spirit’, which relates to aligning your goals with your actions. If the answer you give is ‘no’, you now know the first step you’ll need to make.
The Power Of The Pause
When you choose deliberately to close the gap between what you say is important and what you actually allocate your energy doing, a life balance emerges, as does a brand-new, authentic YOU. For instance, when I started to acknowledge my good fortune, which only took a single, powerful moment, I not only became better and more efficient in my career endeavors, I actually started to enjoy my job more fully, which is a reward in itself! Give it a try for YOUR self. Whenever you enter into an activity, pause. Come to the present and utter a silent thank-you using the words “I’m just where I want to be”. No guilt, no abstractions, no FOMO. Just the important stuff, which I like to refer to as the fabric of an authentic life. Don’t you just feel more grateful and grounded even thinking about it?